Who Pays for Intolerant “Tolerance” on Adoption

Consider how the child welfare system works. The state works with adoption agencies and foster care providers to place children in homes. The providers recruit families to adopt or foster the children.

Different providers recruit different types of families. For example, Christian providers, which often work directly with churches or other faith-based charities, usually recruit Christian families. If you get rid of some of the providers, you get rid of some of the families. The fewer providers doing the work of recruitment, the fewer homes for children.

Simple enough, right? Yet the Left obfuscates by claiming LGBT couples should have a right to force providers to violate their faith or go out of business, while showing no concern for children in desperate need of families.

It is more important to progressives to block the ability of Christians and other traditionalists to live according to their beliefs and promote those beliefs than to help our society’s most-vulnerable children. It happened in Massachusetts a decade ago, and it’s happening in Philadelphia, right now.

Data on these matters will take time to develop and to be analyzed. No study jumped immediately out of an Internet search, and the interactions are complex. However, mixing federal data on the numbers of finalized adoptions in Massachusetts with state-level numbers for the number of children ending each fiscal year gives some reason for concern.

Catholic Charities ceased providing adoption services near the end of fiscal year 2006. From that year to 2014 (the last year for which all data is available), the number of finalized adoptions fell 29.6%, while the number of children (broadly defined) listed as having a “goal of adoption” fell only 6.6%. Consequently, the number of children who were adopted fell from 24.2% of the total either adopted or awaiting adoption to 19.4%.

To be clear, this should be considered a rough estimate. The numbers may need some adjustment before being combined, and there are some aberrations from year to year that should be explored. Still, the apparent trend comports with what one would expect after this significant change in policy. And if one cares about children (let alone religious freedom) opposing legislation that would allow religious organizations to keep doing what they’ve done for decades betrays a radical, inhumane intention.